I still remember when I really liked Clegg. It seems like a long time ago now, but I have to admit that his latest speech – and his remit to deliver political reform – has moved him onto ground I can unambiguously support.

My housemate, not as political as I am, was completely stunned by this speech. She said, “This is real? We can really have this?” and I feel the same. The full text of the speech is on the BBC’s website and it’s well worth reading. Particular highlights include:

Landmark legislation, from politicians who refused to sit back and do nothing while huge swathes of the population remained helpless against vested interests, who stood up for the freedom of the many, not the privilege of the few.

and…

As long as money plays such a big part in our politics, we are never going to curtail the tyranny of vested interests.

“Tyranny”, along with “betrayal” is another one of those words that only politicians ever say, but I can’t quite help myself. “Tyranny of vested interest” is music to my ears.

So we still, for now, have the Human Rights Act. This secures, in law, certain ‘rights’ from the State which are:

• Right to Life
• Prohibition of Torture
• Prohibition of Slavery and Forced Labour
• Right to Liberty and Security
• Right to a Fair Trial
• No Punishment without law
• Right to respect for private and family life
• Freedom of thought, conscience and religion
• Freedom of expression
• Freedom of assembly and association
• Right to marry
• Prohibition of Discrimination

In many respects the Human Rights Act is a fundamentally depressing law – one that was felt necessary because it catalogues the list of abuses of State power that can and do happen, but in some places it goes too far and in others not far enough.

What seems to have specifically upset Conservatives (and others) about the Human Rights Act is that it prevents the deportation of certain individuals who are likely to be murdered and tortured – even when those individuals are terrorists and show no regard for the Human Rights Act in so far as it applies to other human beings. I suspect the Prohibition of Discrimination and the Right to Education aren’t very popular either.

But the real fault-line here is jurisdiction. The Human Rights Act applies to everyone, irrespective of their legal status in the UK. The Conservative Bill of Rights would likely apply to British (or perhaps EU) citizens only, not foreign nationals.

Foreign nationals – including illegal immigrants, asylum seekers and people on temporary visas would have no protection from our Government at all. Murder, torture, punishment without law, unfair trials – even preventing them getting married – all these options suddenly become available to the Government of the day.

I would argue that the Conservatives need to get their alternative, the “Bill of Rights”, drafted and scrutinised and let us judge which is preferable. Truth is we don’t really know what they intend to replace it with, so we’re playing a wait and see game.

The Human Rights Act isn’t perfect and certainly isn’t the last word in protecting citizens from the Government, and perhaps a Bill of Rights could be an improvement, at least for British nationals… but Lib Dem MPs are never going to vote in favour – or even abstain – on anything that will allow the British Government to commit acts that will result in torture or murder, no matter how reprehensible the individuals in question might be.

But if anything could break up this coalition, this could be it. This here is an example of an unreconcilable difference, one where there’s no reasonable compromise. You can’t have a ‘bit’ of torture, or a ‘bit’ or murder, as far as I know.

How’s about this for a bit of perspective? Ian Hislop asks the audience on Have I Got News For You who’s read “The Agreement” and asks for a show of hands of those who think it sounds pretty good. “Just me then?” he says, embarrassed. Oh dear, thinks I.

The Coalition’s biggest challenge is going to be finding something for the casual observers to like about this new administration. Civil Liberties, dealing with the deficit and forming a stable majority Government isn’t quite doing the trick. It matters because elections are won or lost based on what these casual observers reckon, not the opinions of the well informed and up to date. Electioneering is a numbers game, and there’s more casual observers than politics dorks.

It’s probably quite safe for Opposition politicians to tell people, for example, that “The Agreement” is almost entirely Tory policy and that the only concession the Lib Dems have won is referendum on electoral reform that they’re probably going to lose anyway. If that’s what the majority end up “reckoning” they can’t be lambasted them for their ignorance. Politicians have to respect their opinion, even when the issue at stake isn’t a matter of opinion at all.

It’d be a mistake to believe that because this Coalition has managed to slip through some good stuff reversing much of the Authoritarianism of the previous Government that this means we’ve “won”. No-one really voted for it. It’s happening because the two Parties have the opportunity, means and desire to do it – and helpfully can blame each other for it when the Daily Mail starts their hysterical screaming about “political correctness gone mad!”

Civil Liberties barely came up during the Election campaigning. The appetite for controls on “everyone else” for the sake of a modicum of additional safety hasn’t gone away. Both Nick Clegg and David Cameron are populists, not ideologues – but their version of populism seems to have a much more adult, cool tempered flavour for now – and that’s to be welcomed. The test will be how long it lasts and whether or not they can find a ‘new politics’ solution rather than following their predecessors into reactionary control freakism.

You know what I’d love? I’d love to be able to write something along the lines of “every single woman who’s a minister or cabinet minister is there out of merit and ability to do the job, rather than tokenism. That matters more than the numbers.”

I’d love to be able to write that… but I’d have to be a fool to believe it. For it to be true, it’d have to be true of every single minister – not just the women. The exception that disproves it, quite obviously, is George Osborne, someone who’s as qualified to be Chancellor as I am. From Wikipedia:

Osborne’s first job was to provide data entry services to the National Health Service to record the names of people who had died in London.^[8] He also briefly worked for Selfridges. He originally intended to pursue a career as a journalist, but after failing to become one at a national newspaper, was informed of a vacant job at the Conservative Central Office.

Quite the impressive CV, I’m sure you’ll agree. But perhaps Osborne’s monumental over-achievement is a good thing for those of us with similarly uninspiring CVs? But where’s the evidence of the merit that justifies holding arguably the most important job in the Government? You can’t argue he’s got good leadership skills that make him the kind of person who’d be good at running the Treasury. You can’t argue that he’s a good media performer. You can’t, in fact, argue that he inspires trust in the electorate on his ability to steward the Government’s tinkering with the economy.

So why is George Osborne Chancellor? Why does he have the Number 2 job? The only possible explanation is his relationship with David Cameron. David Cameron, after all, gets to pick the Cabinet and like most (all?) other Prime Ministers before him he’s chosen to reward his closest, most trusted friends with the top jobs, then populate the rest of the spots with people he thinks capable of doing the job. New Politics? My arse.

We could, of course, change this. We could insist that the Government tries to seek a gender balance and, in all likelihood, we’d probably be no worse off then we currently are in terms of quality of Government, but women would be worse off, I think. It’s not enough just to see women in power, achieving great things. To really count, to really make a difference to young women who might aspire to such things, they need to know that women in power got there by being superb, unmatched in skill and talent – and not by schmoozing their way into the Prime Minister’s Inner Circle, or worse because there’s some arbitrary quota to create the illusion of meritocracy.

The call for gender balance for the sake of it is just another version of the same fucked up, un-meritocratic system we already have. In politics, it’s all about Prime Ministers wanting to make sure they can trust and work with the people who run those key departments far more than it’s about how good these could-be ministers might be. What the lack of women in the cabinet reveals is how few women have been able to penetrate Cameron’s inner circle to become essential to him – except, perhaps, for Theresa May. This may indeed be true of Clegg too, who’s rewarded HIS inner circle – another sausage fest from what we can tell.

We know how Brown regarded women in his Government – Window Dressing. So, perhaps, let’s look at this seeming reversal as progress, instead. We’re seeing the real underlying truth for once and can see how much work really needs to be done. No fig leaves, no window dressing, just the cold, naked truth which I’ll take over a pleasant fiction at any time.

As an aside, I looked at Theresa May’s Wikipedia page and found this:

From 1977 to 1983 she worked at the Bank of England, and from 1985 to 1997, as a financial consultant and senior advisor in International Affairs at the Association for Payment Clearing Services.

A natural fit for the Home Office, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Gut feeling on this is that the face who ends up as Labour leader isn’t that important. The manifesto is going to end up being pretty similar whoever wins. There’s some common themes emerging already, so going out on a very early limb I expect their next manifesto is going to look something like this:

• Much stronger economic controls, direct intervention and financial support for key industries
• Tougher immigration controls and restrictions
• A harder line on Europe, especially on EU immigration
• More “personalised” and “human” public services
• “Living wage” for public sector workers
• An end to the cuts to the public sector, increase in tax on ‘The Rich’
• Tougher policies on Climate Change and “Green Economy”

The mood in Labour seems to be about reconnecting with those lost working class voters. If that’s the case, plunging left economically and coming down hard on immigrants seems the only way to achieve this.

I’ll give Ed Miliband the final, chilling word. Here he is explaining the intellectual underpinnings of this new Progressive Future we can look forward to in 5 years time:

When competition is driving down your wages and your pension rights, saying globalisation is good for you and for the economy as a whole is an example of what I mean about becoming a technocrat. Because it is a good answer for economists but it is no answer for the people of Britain.

Says it all really.